Heretofore, copying machines have been provided which have the capability of making divisional copies of an original document such as a book. A divisional copy of a book is made by placing the two opposing pages of an open-faced book on the original document platen and having copying operations performed consecutively on the image fields of both pages by starting said copying operation only once. The images corresponding to both the respective image fields are formed either on two sheets of copy paper or on the obverse and reverse sides of a single sheet of copy paper. This type of book divisional copying function entails positioning the page to be copied on the document platen and includes closing the document cover, but is convenient in that it eliminates half the conventional process.
Consider the application of this type of divisional copy function to a sheet document. When using a copying machine having a conventional book divisional copying function, a two-sheet document is arranged with the sheets side by side on the document platen. In such an instance, one sheet of the document may be aligned along the reference edge of the document platen, but the remaining sheet of the document must be aligned with the opposite edge of the first aligned sheet of the document. Aligning the sheet document in a side-by-side manner is troublesome when the size of the sheet original does not conform to the size of the copy paper, and particularly if the sheet original is very thin.